Belief in Nothing

 

"You don't believe in anything"
"You believe in nothing"

The above accusations are typical for the religious to make towards the Nonbelievers. However the Believers seem to be unaware that they believe in a 'nothing'. Below is an example to set-up my argument. Hypothetically imagine that I am serious, try to envision the way a person-of-faith would react.

 The description of God

God looks like:

 God smells like:

 God sounds like:

 If you were to lick God, this is what he would taste like:

God feels like:

That is the description of God that covers all of the five basic senses.

Most Believers would deny this as being accurate (like they deny the Flying Spaghetti Monster as being what God looks like). But they cannot prove that is not an accurate description. The prerequisite for knowing what something is not, is to know what something is (keep in mind, I'm talking about existing tangible descriptions). To believe in something, you must become aware of it; in other-words: one of the five senses would need to be able to sense it and there would need to be some sort of evidence (hallucinations cause problems in perceiving reality).

The majority of whom "believe", believe that their god cannot be perceived with the senses; unfortunately for them they fall into this trap, which exposes them. What is the difference between 'nothing' and God? The only apparent distinction is the perception of it. When all the details are put-forth, God and 'nothing' are the same.

It is possible that some form of intelligence is responsible for setting up this universe (although highly unlikely) — it is not the same-thing as what Believers claim to be aware of (if it was possible to be aware of, it would be considered fact). Believers "believe" in the historical accuracy of stories told in old books — but I'm referring to what God is, not what he is allegedly responsible for. Nothing is precisely how much they know about what they claim to believe in.



Can you really tell the difference between these two pictures below? — other then the mere words that label them (black is being used to represent the nonexistence of information).

(God)

(nothing)

Religious people claim that there is a difference; but in reality the only difference between the two is the labeling.  Nonbelievers believe in nothing in just the same way religious people do — but the religious refuse to admit it.

For the people that claim to have "felt" the presence of a god, then I strongly urge you to read my post on that subject: Experiencing a god's presence?

For the people that claim that God has "spoken" to people before, check out: Schizophrenic Inspiration

Catholic Hypocrisy

 

As Jesus was starting on his way again, a man ran up, knelt before him, and asked him, "Good Teacher, what must I do to receive eternal life?" "Why do you call me good?" Jesus asked him. "No one is good except God alone. You know the commandments: 'Do not commit murder; do not commit adultery; do not steal; do not accuse anyone falsely; do not cheat; respect your father and your mother.' " "Teacher," the man said, "ever since I was young, I have obeyed all these commandments." Jesus looked straight at him with love and said, "You need only one thing. Go and sell all you have and give the money to the poor, and you will have riches in heaven; then come and follow me." When the man heard this, gloom spread over his face, and he went away sad, because he was very rich. Jesus looked around at his disciples and said to them, "How hard it will be for rich people to enter the Kingdom of God!" The disciples were shocked at these words, but Jesus went on to say, "My children, how hard it is to enter the Kingdom of God! It is much harder for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God than for a camel to go through the eye of a needle."

Jesus' message is very clear: "sell all you have and give the money to the poor", "It is much harder for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God than for a camel to go through the eye of a needle". The level of hypocrisy in the catholic religion is unreal. It is not only the Vatican and the Pope which is being referred to. But also a large amount of their churches have a very extravagant appearance. The message Jesus was trying to make (or the people that wrote of him) was to give wealth to the less fortunate and being rich is looked down upon. For people that claim to be as devout as these do, they can't even follow basic instructions (they do the complete opposite). If even half the wealth and effort that was put towards these luxuries was instead put towards helping the poor, imagine how much good it would do.

Catholics always go-on about how great Jesus was, along with his message. But at the same time their leaders live like kings – if Jesus was a real guy, the sight of this would be sickening to him. Come-on Catholics, time to be more 'Christ-like', give away all your wealth to the poor! Rich people have a near impossible time getting into heaven remember! While I think religion for the most part is damaging and mere superstition. Jesus did have a good message here, and that message is being ignored for convenience. While being well-off is a good thing, an obscene amount of wealth is damaging to society, it detracts from it. The more wealth a person has, the less others have. Saying that the Catholic religion's wealth is 'obscene' is almost understating it. This is the exact opposite of what Jesus taught.

The Bible on STD's/Menstrual Cycle

(Chlamydia Trachomatis)

This is a portion is found in Leviticus in the Bible and it discuses STD type infections and the menstrual cycle. It's rather long, but I feel worth the read.

The LORD gave Moses and Aaron the following regulations for the people of Israel. When any man has a discharge from his penis, the discharge is unclean, whether the penis runs with it or is stopped up by it. Any bed on which he sits or lies is unclean. Anyone who touches his bed or sits on anything the man has sat on must wash his clothes and take a bath, and he remains unclean until evening. Anyone who touches the man with the discharge must wash his clothes and take a bath, and he remains unclean until evening. If the man with the discharge spits on anyone who is ritually clean, that person must wash his clothes and take a bath, and he remains unclean until evening. Any saddle or seat on which the man with the discharge sits is unclean. Anyone who touches anything on which the man sat is unclean until evening. Anyone who carries anything on which the man sat must wash his clothes and take a bath, and he remains unclean until evening. If a man who has a discharge touches one of you without first having washed his hands, you must wash your clothes and take a bath, and you remain unclean until evening. Any clay pot that the man touches must be broken, and any wooden bowl that he touches must be washed. After the man is cured of his discharge, he must wait seven days and then wash his clothes and take a bath in fresh spring water, and he will be ritually clean. On the eighth day he shall take two doves or two pigeons to the entrance of the Tent of the LORD's presence and give them to the priest. The priest shall offer one of them as a sin offering and the other as a burnt offering. In this way he will perform the ritual of purification for the man. When a man has an emission of semen, he must bathe his whole body, and he remains unclean until evening. Anything made of cloth or leather on which the semen falls must be washed, and it remains unclean until evening. After sexual intercourse both the man and the woman must take a bath, and they remain unclean until evening. When a woman has her monthly period, she remains unclean for seven days. Anyone who touches her is unclean until evening. Anything on which she sits or lies during her monthly period is unclean. Any who touch her bed or anything on which she has sat must wash their clothes and take a bath, and they remain unclean until evening. If a man has sexual intercourse with her during her period, he is contaminated by her impurity and remains unclean for seven days, and any bed on which he lies is unclean. If a woman has a flow of blood for several days outside her monthly period or if her flow continues beyond her regular period, she remains unclean as long as the flow continues, just as she is during her monthly period. Any bed on which she lies and anything on which she sits during this time is unclean. Any who touch them are unclean and must wash their clothes and take a bath; they remain unclean until evening. After her flow stops, she must wait seven days, and then she will be ritually clean. On the eighth day she shall take two doves or two pigeons to the priest at the entrance of the Tent of the LORD's presence. The priest shall offer one of them as a sin offering and the other as a burnt offering, and in this way he will perform the ritual of purification for her. The LORD told Moses to warn the people of Israel about their uncleanness, so that they would not defile the Tent of his presence, which was in the middle of the camp. If they did, they would be killed. These are the regulations about a man who has a discharge or an emission of semen, a woman during her monthly period, or a man who has sexual intercourse with a woman who is ritually unclean.- Leviticus 15:1-33 GNB

 For people at the time, this may have been decent advise; if you have problems like the above mention, you should try to be as clean as possible and take steps to avoid infecting others. But that is innate for most of us humans, a god hardly needed to tell people. There are three dead-giveaways that the all-powerful creator of the universe is not responsible for this advice. Firstly the part about killing doves or pigeons; animal sacrifice is a very primitive act — obviously we know now that it does nothing to help with an infection, but apparently an all-knowing god didn't. The second giveaway is the thought of menstrual blood as being "unclean". The third being how the writers thought disease had "supernatural" causes, an all-knowing god should have mentioned things like bacteria. This reflects just how ignorant the writers of the scripture were to reality. The Bible's "knowledge" is based on instinct and ignorance. This really puts into perspective just how accurate the book is.

Biblical Infanticide

Many would agree that killing infants is one of the most immoral actions a person could do. However the "good-book" promotes it in certain circumstances. Here are two examples of Biblical infanticide...

He (God) is going to punish the people of Amalek because their ancestors opposed the Israelites when they were coming from Egypt. Go and attack the Amalekites and completely destroy everything they have. Don't leave a thing; kill all the men, women, children, and babies; the cattle, sheep, camels, and donkeys." -1 Samuel 15:2-3

 The 'Lord' himself orders infanticide on the Amalekites (among many other horrible acts). The religious moral lesson here is: killing infants is okay, just so long as God is on your side. Christians claim to be 'right-to-lifers' based on morality they get from the Bible — a bit hypocritical, is it not? On to the next example!

Babylon, you will be destroyed. Happy are those who pay you back for what you have done to us-- who take your babies and smash them against a rock. - Psalms 137:8-9

The Bible's "people" are described as being "happy" to smash infants against rocks, what is more demented then that? I assume most religious people are not aware of these things that appear in their beloved book. People that get moral inspiration from the bible are either ignorant or insane.

The Supernatural

Many unexplainable phenomena are thought of as having supernatural causes – the unknown should not be viewed in such a manner. When a person refers to the supernatural, they are pretending to understand an unknown (which is impossible). When we humans are unable explain something, we feel a need to fill that void. Elaborate ideas have been created to try to make sense of the unknown in our universe (e.g. life is so complex, must have been a god that created it). We think too highly of our ability to comprehend our surroundings. Some think that humans have complete understanding of how the natural universe works – along with being capable of determining what is outside of it; it is both arrogant and ignorant.

'Consciousness' is a good example for what is thought of as being supernatural. When the concept of consciousness is thought about – many automatically have the assumption that there is a 'spirit' – something beyond our ability to understand/perceive and not confined to the natural-universe. It is impossible to take zero-knowledge and make any claim about what it is, along with how it works. That is like having no potatoes and thinking you have enough to make fries – you can't get something out of nothing. Ask this question to a believer in spirits: "what exactly is a spirit"? They will probably say something similar to "it's a form of energy" – ask them to expand on the answer (energy could mean anything). When it comes down to it, they know nothing about what they claim to know about. The only difference between agnostics and "believers" is the level of honesty. Things which were considered to be supernatural at one time, are now understood; Things like disease, the complexity of life – even the weather was thought of as being in that category – we were dead-wrong on all of them. The more we learn, the less mysterious this universe becomes, the more we realize that our assumptions of the unknown were wrong.

Why Belief Is Important.

One commonality modern-day religions have (for the most part) is the 'need to believe' requirement. Christianity for example, requires belief in their religious dogma; it is believed that people whom do not, get to have fun playing in a lake of fire (love thy neighbor, unless they disagree with you). What a great bargaining chip: "believe what I tell you, or face the worst imaginable form of torture, for an infinite amount of time". Christians seem to think (or any similar religion, in respect to the 'belief' aspect) that belief is the most important requirement, but they provide no justification for it.

Few disagree with the notion of scripture coming from humans (the disagreement is whether there was divine inspiration involved). If humans do something, they will naturally have human motivations. The primary human motivation is power (When I say "power", I am referring to wealth, and control over people). The best way to get power is to make people believe you are powerful. If people do not believe you are legitimate, you have no power over them (which is why religions like Christianity try to portray nonbelievers as being bad). It's all about what is beneficial for the religion (referring to the organization). If a religion doesn't require a person to believe it is true, then the religion will have nowhere near the power it could potentially. 

There is zero evidence for any god, but lets say hypothetically there was a god. If this god wanted people to know about him/her, it would have no trouble doing so (most gods are very powerful). It is clear that no god desires people to know about their existence (that or there is no god, which is more likely the case). But religion tries its hardest to make people think they need to believe, otherwise, they (the source of religious ideas) do not have as much power. Belief is important for a religion, there is no reason to suggest why it would be important for a god (if anything it is the opposite). If a religion was truly legitimate, it would be more focused on being nice to others, as well as how to get enjoyment out of life. Instead, it is fixated on requiring people to believe in the validity of stories, written several millennia ago. These old stories are what give religion its power.

Funny Halloween Message.

A picture is worth a thousand words. Happy Halloween!